Sony Ericsson President Steps Down

Miles Flint, the president of Sony Ericsson, has left the job saying that he “wanted to develop new personal and business opportunities after nearly 17 years at Sony and Sony Ericsson”. He’ll be replaced by Hideki “Dick” Komiyama from the beginning of November, who is the chairman of Sony Electronics USA and the executive vice president of electronics marketing and sales strategies for Sony Corp, reports ZDNet UK. Flint has done a pretty good job with Sony Ericsson in recent years, so no-one seems to think he was forced from the job. Analysts in the story say that the next stage of Sony Ericsson’s life is going to be tougher: “Credit Suisse’s Garcha said Sony Ericsson would have a tough time targeting new areas since the company was predominantly a mid- to high-end phone maker…”If they’re going to the low end it’s going to be margin-dilutive, but probably for the long term it’s going to be necessary”. That’s only true if they’re going after marketshare — if they want to maintain the margin they’ll still get growth has more people around the world buy mid-range phones…the trick will be maintaining their brands (Walkman and Cybershot).

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